Andrew Pettegree

Propaganda, pulp fiction, spies and censorship: Andrew Pettegree's latest book explores the fascinating and action-packed story of books in wartime.

Chairman Mao was a librarian. Stalin was a published poet. Evelyn Waugh served as a commando - before leaving to write Brideshead Revisited. Since the advent of modern warfare, books have all too often found themselves on the frontline.

In The Book at War, acclaimed historian Andrew Pettegree traces the surprising ways in which written culture has shaped, and been shaped, by the conflicts of the modern age. From the American Civil War to the invasion of Ukraine, books, authors and readers have gone to war - and in the process become both deadly weapons and our most persuasive arguments for peace.

Andrew Pettegree is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews. He is the co-author of The Library: A Fragile History, and the prize-winning The Book in the Renaissance and The Invention of News.

Please note this event will take place upstairs in the bookshop.